Paris (AFP)
Humor and tears mingled Monday for the funeral in Paris of iconoclastic director Jean-Pierre Mocky, whose tributes all point to extreme freedom and generosity.
A dense crowd - personalities of the show and companions of his films, but also simple fans of his crazy cinema - welcomed the coffin in the vast church Saint-Sulpice (VI), while a barbar organ played in particular "Paris Jadis", an ode to popular Paris.
Jean-Pierre Mocky, 90, died on Thursday while still working on a film project.
In the presence of the Minister of Culture Franck Riester, many actors made the trip: Michael Lonsdale, Dominique Lavanant, Agnès Soral, Dominique Pinon, Daniel Russo, Benoit Magimel, Henri Guybet, Bernard Menez, Daniel Prevost, Elsa Zylberstein ... Singers Richard Gotainer and Tom November, composer Vladimir Cosma also took place in the church.
"It was provocative and attentive, everything and its opposite!" The filming with him was a pleasure, he knew how to go on tiptoe while screaming from time to time, Dominique Lavanant told reporters.
Former chaplain of the artists, Father Philippe Desgens welcomed the coffin of light wood by emphasizing that the mother of Mocky, catholic, had had him baptized, and added, in allusion to one of his cult films, that it was decidedly " a funny parishioner ".
The priest Jean-Loup Lacroix noted that "behind the provocateur, there is a man of great sensitivity". "It's time for me to stop before I hear him screaming from above, not + motor + but + cut +", he concluded with humor, triggering laughter.
Various testimonies have raised his character of "King of handymen" who made him touch everything, calling everyone by his first name, even if he could treat them as "cons". "His tongue-in-cheek speech has closed some doors," said one of them.
The director was to be buried in the Prieuré Noir cemetery in Saint-Prix in the Val d'Oise, in the strictest intimacy.
In Le Figaro's notebook, his children had invited his fans to "come and say goodbye to him rather than mourn his death."
© 2019 AFP